Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  “Tell me something new.”

  “You don’t want me here.”

  He said nothing, waiting.

  “I have a proposal. I’ll fight you.”

  He laughed. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him laugh before, and I could have done without it this time, since it was at my expense. “Don’t waste my time,” he said.

  I bit back my instinctive response. “If I lose, I’ll stop trying to escape. I’ll be the nice, docile wife and you won’t even need to think about me.”

  “I don’t think about you now.”

  That was a lie, but I didn’t call him on it. “What have you got to lose?” I could do it, I was sure of it. I had opened those doors; I had bested their most powerful soldier with barely any effort. I gave him a silky smile. “Are you afraid of being shown up? I could have you on your back in a matter of seconds.”

  “No,” he said, taking a step closer. “I could have you on yours.”

  My temper flared. “Don’t do that!”

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend that you have even the faintest interest in me sexually. You’ve made it clear you’re willing to risk the fate of the world rather than sleep with me.”

  I’d shocked him. And then that same slow smile curved his beautiful mouth, and I was lost. The water still glistened on his chest, and something tightened inside me.

  “That rankles, does it?” he murmured. “You know as well as I do that it isn’t your charms that are lacking.”

  “I know all about those kinds of excuses. ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’” I said with a trace of bitterness.

  He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ve been celibate for more than a hundred years. I’m not about to change my mind for no reason.”

  “The fate of the world is no reason?” I shot back.

  Now he seemed genuinely amused, and he took another step toward me. “Are you trying to talk me into it?”

  “No! I just want to get the hell out of here, and I’ll do anything I can to make that happen.”

  “Including fucking me?”

  The word shocked me. Not that I hadn’t heard it before, not that he hadn’t used it before. But in this dark, heated atmosphere, it suddenly felt real, visceral. Possible.

  I could call his bluff. My palms were sweating, but I wasn’t going to let him win. “Anything.”

  I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. It looked almost feral, and for a moment a very real fear sliced through me. Not that he would win. But that my victory might defeat me in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

  “Yes,” he said.

  For a moment I didn’t understand him. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I’ll fight you for your right to leave. If you win, you get to walk away, leave this place, and you won’t even remember you were here.”

  “I’ve got a very good memory.” Was I feeling triumph? Or an odd sense of disappointment?

  “We have ways of making you forget.”

  I blanched at that, but shook it off. “Deal.”

  “You haven’t asked me what happens if I win.” His voice matched his body, beautiful, dangerous, seductive.

  I tried to sound bored. “I told you. I stay put and leave you alone.”

  He shook his head. “No. I fuck you, then you stay put and leave me alone.”

  I froze. His words shook me, the cool, insinuating tone that seemed to slip under my skin. I tried to pull myself together. “So you’ve decided the fate of the world deserves that kind of sacrifice? Who talked you into it?”

  “Not a sacrifice,” he said softly. “And I’m not taking your blood, only your—no, I’ll spare you that particular word. You don’t like fuck—you’re hardly ready for the mother of all swearwords. I’ll take your body. I’ve decided to call your bluff. I don’t think you’re likely to pay up, and the sooner you face that, the sooner I won’t even have to think about you. We’ll get it done and get it over with.”

  Fury swept through me. For a moment I had considered what it might be like to lie beneath him, and my body had reacted with fierce, hot longing. Had he known what even I hadn’t been completely aware of? That beneath my determination to get the hell away from him—from here—was a dark, secret need for him?

  “You’re a cold-blooded bastard, aren’t you?” I said. “Pissing me off isn’t the best way to win.”

  “On the contrary. When people are angry, they tend to make mistakes, react emotionally. In battle you need to be cool, removed.”

  “No one would ever accuse you of reacting emotionally,” I snapped.

  “No, they wouldn’t.” He took a step back, dismissing me. “Go back to your room, Victoria Bellona, if you’re not ready to play.”

  The last remaining hold on my temper broke. “My name is Tory,” I snarled. “And I’m going to wipe the floor with you.”

  He laughed again, and this time he sounded almost happy. Of course he was—he lived for fighting, for warfare, for battle. “We have a bargain, Tory?” The emphasis on my name was derisive.

  I kicked off my shoes. “We have a bargain.”

  MICHAEL DIDN’T STOP to think about it. He knew what he was doing, knew it was stupid and rash, knew he’d wanted any excuse to put his hands on her, and now he finally had it. As long as he didn’t take her blood, the prophecy would remain unfulfilled.

  He knew she was good—she’d tried hard to hide her fighting skills, but the moment Metatron had gone down for the first time, he’d known. By the time she’d flattened Metatron again, he was surprised everyone else in the place hadn’t recognized just how dangerous his wife was. But she was as good at dissimulating as she was at combat, and he’d watched her as she moved, luring her opponents, pushing them just enough until she faked her defeat. She’d done more good for the women than he’d been able to do in weeks. There was no way she was going to stay in her rooms after this—he would put her in charge of the wives, secure in the knowledge that she would bring out the best in them while he concentrated on the Fallen.

  He gave her a smile calculated to drive her temper higher still. He’d given her a boon, warning her that rage would only weaken her, but she’d been too angry to listen. Combat was more than blocking, more than attack and defense. It was strategy, diagnosing your opponent’s style to see three moves ahead. When you were filled with anger, you couldn’t see things as clearly.

  He stretched out a hand and beckoned her mockingly. “I’ll give you the first hit.”

  A second later he was flat on his back, her knees on his shoulders, pinning him down. She held him for a brief moment longer than she should have, simply because he’d been so shocked, but a moment later she was off him, flying through the air to land on her feet on the mat halfway across the room.

  The move should have slammed her against the wall. He flexed his shoulders, watching her. “I’m impressed. You surprised me.”

  “It’s never wise to underestimate your opponent,” she said smugly, dancing closer.

  He smiled at her pleasantly, then moved, sweeping her legs out from under her in one swift stroke. She didn’t fall, but caught herself and flipped back up, a maneuver she shouldn’t have been able to do. He must have given away some of his surprise, because she looked even more smug. “Goddess, remember?”

  A moment later she was flat on her back and he was on top of her, straddling her the same way she’d straddled him, his knees digging into her shoulders. “Angel, remember?”

  She flipped him off effortlessly, and they were both on their feet again, staring at each other. She wasn’t breathing heavily. Neither was he.

  He could sense her pulse, full and strong, and a sudden raging hunger swept through him, so shocking that for a moment he froze. He’d never felt anything like it, that powerful surge of need that could have brought him to his knees more easily than all her moves.

  She slammed into him, flattening him, straddling him, and for a moment he didn’t move, staring up at her, at the sweat-damp skin and the blood throbbing in
her neck, inhaling the sweetness of her scent. He wrapped his fingers around her hips, his thumbs pressing against her slowly, rhythmically.

  She froze as well, looking down at him. Her pupils were huge in the dimly lit room, and she was beginning to breathe more rapidly. Her small breasts beneath the tank top were perfect, and he wanted his mouth on them. Needed to taste them, more than he needed her blood, and he needed her blood to survive.

  “Tory.” He called her, and slowly, slowly she leaned down, as if pulled by some invisible thread, her mouth coming closer, moving toward his, and he lifted his hand to slide beneath her heavy fall of hair, to pull her closer. Then the spell broke and she tore herself away, with such violence that she went spinning across the room, knocking over the small lamp he kept lit while he did his nightly workout.

  The room was plunged into darkness, and he wondered whether she would run. He could sense it almost as if he were feeling it himself, her powerful need to escape, to get away from him, from what was between them. But something—pride?—stopped her, and he knew she wouldn’t leave until she bested him.

  And he knew she couldn’t best him. They could pound each other into the floor, but she would never win. The question remained: could he?

  He leapt to his feet effortlessly. His eyes were already accustomed to the faint moonlight streaming through the windows overhead. She stood there, her skin dusted with silver, her nipples hard. It was possible that the fighting aroused her.

  But it wasn’t the fight. He aroused her. It was what lay between them; he knew it as well as she did. Maybe better. Martha had been right all along. Tory wasn’t just a means to an end, she was his bonded mate; and whether she lived a month or lived a century, nothing would change. She was his.

  For better or worse.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  HE WAS STRONG. STRONGER THAN anyone I’d ever fought before, stronger than I would have thought possible. Fast, graceful, wicked, he blocked my every move. He threw me as if I weighed nothing, and for every slight gain I made he countered it with a stronger one. He learned fast, and he was merciless, slamming me into the floor, even though I managed to get up each time; he couldn’t have known I’d be so resilient. With any other human, the battle would be long over, the loser a heap of broken bones and blood in the middle of the floor.

  With any other human? With any human. The more he pushed me, the more I was forced to admit the inevitable. I wasn’t human. No ordinary person could withstand the punishment he was inflicting on me and keep fighting back, bloody but unbowed. He knew it too—I sensed he was looking for any chance to stop this. He hit me at the back of the legs, and I went down, rolled over, and sprang back up, kicking him in the kidneys. He grunted, the only recognition of what should have been a debilitating blow, and caught my ankle as I kicked again, flipping me.

  I slammed down this time, my ribs aching, my breath coming in deep rasps, my heart pounding. He was breathing heavily as well, though not as much as I was, and had a cut over one eye. He came to stand over me like a conquering hero. “You accept defeat?”

  I managed a convincing snuffle. “I . . . I . . .” I began, trying to sound tearful. And then I spun upward, higher than I would have thought I could, kicking him in the jaw before landing back in a crouch.

  His head snapped back, and I wondered if I’d broken his neck. I didn’t wait to see. I kicked again, hard in the middle of his flat, muscled stomach, and he went down, spread-eagle on one of the mats, clawing for breath.

  I had him. I leapt on him, my sharp knees aiming for his solar plexus, ready to deliver the blow that would render him either unconscious or dead, and I was in full battle mode, not caring.

  A moment later I was underneath him, his legs wrapped around mine, his hands on my wrists like manacles, his hips pinning me, his chest crushing me.

  I tried to slam my head into his, but he reared up out of my reach. I put all my strength into it, trying to throw him off me, but he was inexorable, and I was trapped, staked out on the mat like a butterfly, all my weapons spent.

  I considered spitting at him, but it would do no good. I let my head fall back against the thick mat, closing my eyes, panting, trying to get my breathing under control.

  “I hate you,” I muttered, refusing to look at him.

  “Where’s your grace in defeat?” he taunted me, and I hated him even more. “We wagered, we fought, you lost.”

  I opened my eyes so that he could see the complete disgust and fury in my gaze. I still couldn’t breathe properly, and I didn’t like him on top of me. He was too heavy, and I wanted him off me, away from me, not gazing down at me with that speculative expression on his beautiful face.

  “Great. Congratulations. Now let me up,” I snapped.

  He was looking at me with a cool, detached air. “You got too cocky,” he said. “You thought you had me, and you didn’t watch closely enough.”

  “You can instruct me later. In the meantime, I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

  “So do I.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that I remembered our conversation. What he would do if he won. My heart, which had just begun to slow after the exertion, suddenly began slamming in my chest once more. “You weren’t serious.” My voice wasn’t quite as strong as I’d hoped.

  “We wagered. You lost.”

  “We didn’t wager that.”

  “We did,” he said.

  I lay beneath him, quiet, seemingly defeated. “I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He had no way to anticipate the sudden jerk of my body, my last attempt to flip him and escape. I centered the energy, drawing it to me, and released it in one powerful surge.

  And remained motionless, trapped beneath him.

  A shaft of moonlight lit his face, and he looked oddly tender as he bowed his head toward mine.

  In my entire life I’d only kissed one boy, Johann, and he had been almost as innocent as I was back then. I’d never been kissed by someone who knew how to do it. Michael did.

  I’d expected his mouth to be punishing. Instead, his lips brushed against mine, merely a touch, and I knew I could keep fighting. Could slam my head against him, could bite him.

  But I wasn’t going to. I wanted his mouth, his kiss. I was hungry, hungry for life, hungry for him, all thought of escape disappearing as his lips touched mine again, soft, lingering. I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of him, the taste of him, ready for this.

  He pressed my mouth open with his, and the touch of his tongue was a shock. It was disturbingly intimate, his tongue pushing into my mouth, as his body would push into mine.

  His tongue caught mine, and he was licking me, biting me, and the aches and pains in my body disappeared, until the only sensations were centered on my mouth and the sudden, clenching need between my legs.

  He was there, pressing against me, a solid ridge of desire, and I gave myself up to the dark, insidious pleasure of his tongue in my mouth. It was dangerous, this hot, dark place that called to me, drew me in. His mouth, his hard body, his golden skin, his scent—everything was intoxicating. It was the solid expression of what had called to me when I was locked in my room, called to me with the night breeze and the smell of the sea. I stopped fighting what I had always known. I longed for him, ached for him, the feeling visceral and overwhelming.

  He’d lifted his weight off me, only his hips pinioning me, and he released my wrists, moving one hand down between us, touching my breast. More heat suffused me, and I moaned.

  He took his mouth away, and I wanted to cry out in protest as he sat back on his heels, taking all his weight from me. “Take off your shirt,” he said roughly.

  I was so disoriented that I looked up at him, uncomprehending, so he simply took the hem of my tank top and stripped it off. I lay half-naked beneath him, my small breasts exposed to his critical gaze. I didn’t move, didn’t try to cover myself—that would have been a coward’s way. I simply let him look, judge.
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  A faint smile crossed his austere face. “If I have to fall once more from grace, at least you’re going to make it worthwhile.” His hands encircled my waist, then slid up my ribs to cover my breasts, cupping them, his thumbs brushing against the hard nipples, and I made a soft sound of need that thoroughly shamed me.

  He leaned down and kissed me again, a soft, lingering kiss, before his mouth moved down, and I could feel him at my neck, sucking at the vein he was supposed to pierce, and I steeled myself, wondering why the ache between my legs was intensifying at the thought.

  His teeth grazed my skin, but he moved lower, and I choked at the first touch of his tongue against one breast. The sensation was almost painful, and I put my hands on his shoulders, not sure what I wanted him to do.

  It was the first time I’d touched him without wanting to hurt him. His skin was so warm beneath my hands, warm and alive, and his tattoos danced beneath my touch, moving across his skin with sensuous grace. I couldn’t read the markings, didn’t want to, but I felt their power, and I felt their need. I was clutching him, holding tightly, as his hand reached for the drawstring of my loose pants.

  Yes, I thought. This is what I’ve wanted, what I’ve needed, for so long. I want sex, I want life, I want love. Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.

  His mouth covered my breast, sucking it, and I arched up, my hips reflexively searching for him. He made a low growl in his throat, one of need, one of dominance, but I didn’t care. He could take me any way he wanted, as long as he took me.

  He moved to the other breast. The cool night air hit my wet skin, another absurd arousal, and I could feel myself slipping into some thick cocoon of desire where no thought of the future, no worries about repercussions, nothing existed but the moment and the feel of his skin against mine.

  He blew on my breast, and my fingers dug deeper into his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” I whispered, half-terrified he’d pull away. “Please, don’t stop.”

  He froze. And then he began to curse, low and foul.

  I didn’t move as the cold washed over me, the knowledge that he was going to stop. I’d known it instinctively, and I wondered if I could conquer him in this battle, push him over and move on him, take him in my mouth, wipe out any reservations, any doubts.